Hello, and welcome to Gimme Shelter 6th Annual Kayakfishing Tournament. On Saturday, May 12th, 2012 we will open the rockfish/lingcod season along the North Coast. A $25 registration fee gets you a t-shirt, a few goodies, and entry into the fishing tournament. We fish in teams but score individually, and the winner gets some nice trophies as well as a grand prize – a new RTM Abaco with extras! There will also be prizes for others who place as well as a Sportsman prize, and the nature of the tournament is that all cash in goes back out to the participants. Based on our larger and larger footprint over the years at Shelter Cove, I plan to patronize the locals directly by buying two charter trips and a tractor launch to be awarded as prizes or raffle items. There is much to plan for, much to share here about trips past and anticipation of this year, and organizing yet to do, but, please be clear, the spirit and purpose of this gathering is about people who love the outdoors and love sharing it with others who have their act together and bring a good vibe. There is no room for attitudes or trouble. Our presence in Shelter Cove has been welcomed and we’ve done much to build a good reputation as a group – let’s focus on that as we descend on Shelter Cove for an annual pilgrimage of fishing, drinking in Nature, and enjoying each other with loving hearts and open minds.

There is history to this tournament that is best learned in past threads. This has become like assigning a Tolstoy novel to a college coed, but you really cannot gain better perspective on Gimme Shelter than by reading the threads that have developed around them each year. I’ll give a brief here: 6 of us NCKA members planned a hookup at Shelter Cove early in the ocean salmon season of 2007. I’d caught a huge king the September previous down there, and the season opened in February at that time, so 2 of us from Humboldt, Swellrider (Hawk) and I, and 4 of us from “the Bay Area”, Sailfish (Sonny), Sackyack (Etienne), Sin Coast (Pat), and MBYakker (Chris), planned to rendezvous over the weekend of March 5th, 2007. We had a great time – read about it here: http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,7354.0.html

So the deep winter of ‘07/’08 sets in and Sin Coast / Pat starts up a thread for another early salmon season try called “Gimme Shelter II” – we’d corresponded about getting it going, and I credit him with the naming. Well done, PK. The thread gained momentum and quite a few people (a couple dozen or more) were going to show, but we got blown out by what I now call “a hurricane” – it was so extreme that NO ONE even showed up, at all. What we really saw developing that year though was a strong commitment by longtime members to get together and have a special gathering – I still remember the energy of that thread. Read the 15 page thread here: http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,11452.0.html

Winter of ‘08/’09 brought lots of hard-up rockfishers and lingcod lovers – it was decided that we’d hold the tournament for the opener on Friday, May 15th - Gimme Shelter 3. Biggest fish would take first prize among about 45 of us having a “friendly” – was to be “money between friends”, but since we had some donated prizes we made it a free tournament. Jedmo took it with a 56” wolf eel! We had killer t-shirts by FishMaster, Domenic caught a Pacific Halibut in pre-fish, and such a great time was had all weekend with some awesome fish, exciting adventures, and so much fun it was hard to believe! Read the 56 page thread here: http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,16397.0.html

So winter rolls around at the end of ’09 and Gimme Shelter is now a fixture – there are lots of people wanting in on the fun. I organized Gimme Shelter IV with pre-registration of about 85 people, t-shirts, and a kayak for 1st place. Our boy Big Jim took the grand prize with a nice stringer (AOTY scoring was now the system), and it couldn’t have been more appropriate as he was cruising the “Big Yak” up until then! Such fun and special times were had – it literally brings tears to my eyes to write this and conjure memories of the friendships that formed and positive vibes that flowed through that time and place. Read the 60 page thread here: http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,22208.0.html

OK, so we get to winter of ‘10/11 and Gimme Shelter is solid - time for GS5. Added on additional gear to buy, secured a sponsor donated boat for grand prize freeing up $1000 to go to charity, had a bunch of other prizes and a special custom redwood Trophy Trough with abalone inlay, filled The Tides Inn by New Year, and had 93 paid participants. The tournament went off nicely even though we were subject to some brutal cold and rain. Some totally badass fish were caught including Jacks/Terry’s 48” Pacific Halibut that sealed his victory in the tournament, some monster 20 pound lingcod, and Darius caught his own Pac-But before the weekend was over. Once again, the camaraderie, renewing of old friendships, brotherhood, and spirit of fun and happiness was approaching overwhelming! This stuff can’t be made up – it’s what we do here. Read of GS5 in this 73 page thread: http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,28025.0.html

These threads have turned out to be the longest, most viewed, most responded to threads at NCKA. I’ll take credit for being a rabble-rouser of sorts, relishing the nature of a somewhat cryptic system of communication between a special group who chooses to meet to paddle and fish together. I don't care if this thread eclipses past uber-threads - it's more about the gathering for me now, and quality is the focus over quantity. Thank you for starting your participation by reading this. Over the next 4 months a collective swell of hope and anticipation will form here in this thread. I’ll update a list of registered participants on the most current page, and I’ll have announcements that will be headlined in the changing title of the thread. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions or would like to contribute to the tournament, please feel free to bring them to this thread or PM me.

See the attachments here for the new rules, schedule and registration form – registration closes on April 12th.

Big changes this year: Catch and Release Bonus is now ONLY for your largest fish of that species and you get a point per inch of the fish released instead of just an extra inch worth of points. Perch and flounder are out - we'll score individually based on 6 species: Salmon (5), Halibut (5), Lingcod (5), Rockfish (7), Cabezon (7), and Greenling (11). C&R bonus will only apply to lingcod, rockfish, cabezon and greenling. Releasing a salmon or halibut that could legally be retained is scorable, but no bonus will be allowed because I wouldn't want someone who's unsure of a salmon's species to trough it to have it checked later. If you fish for salmon, KNOW your regs and ID skills, bonk a fish if it's legal and bring that puppy to the potluck! Regarding the C&R bonus only applying to your largest fish of that species, this encourages maximum release of the biggest fish, and that is a part of the tournament that I've always liked to promote, as I believe it puts our group in a very positive light - which is very well deserved.

as always i will be neck deep in work with my clients that always come into the country that time of year, and yet again i can only enjoy GS through the threads, so bring on 100+pages for those of us that cant make it, cameron

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Jackson Kayak Fishing Team Member

Well Stu, kayak fishing is a lifestyle, not a hobby, sometimes you have to look at the swell report and say "Hey bud let's party"